3 ms·

what you get out of it depends on what you put into it If the average quality varies that much, we should be paying a lot less for it. High prices (in general

what you get out of it depends on what you put into it If the average quality varies that much, we should be paying a lot less for it. High prices (in general) imply a level of quality. They don't necessarily indicate quality, but you're not paying a lot for no reason. If the quality from a BMW was highly variable the price would need to decrease to account for that level of risk. In education the student takes all of the risk and pays a high price for it.

gammarator 16y ago
Paying tuition doesn't buy an education, it gives the student an opportunity to become educated. You're not buying an item like a laptop with specs, you're buying admission to participate. The challenge is that many people bring exactly this consumerist attitude to tuition, which then ruins the signalling capacity of the price. "If it's expensive, it must be good." That pushes up demand for enrollment and increases the selectivity and reputation of the university in US News, etc. The university therefore has an incentive to keep tuition high. Unfortunately, then students and parents think, "I'm paying so much for this degree, I should (get A's/not flunk out/...)" [1] Professors who grade rigorously are evaluated harshly; since most instructors aren't tenured, there's no incentive for them to make classes challenging. Then many employers use the earned degree as a crude signal of diligence, since what was actually learned is likely irrelevant to the job at hand. Finally, most families send only a handful of children to college, and there's a significant lag between when graduates and the evaluation of the "success" of the degree. There's no way tuition can accurately price the variation in outcomes with all these inefficiencies. [1] http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/ http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/

gammarator 16y ago

Paying tuition doesn't buy an education, it gives the student an opportunity to become educated. You're not buying an item like a laptop with specs, you're buying admission to participate. The challenge is that many people bring exactly this consumerist attitude to tuition, which then ruins the signalling capacity of the price. "If it's expensive, it must be good." That pushes up demand for enrollment and increases the selectivity and reputation of the university in US News, etc. The university therefore has an incentive to keep tuition high. Unfortunately, then students and parents think, "I'm paying so much for this degree, I should (get A's/not flunk out/...)" [1] Professors who grade rigorously are evaluated harshly; since most instructors aren't tenured, there's no incentive for them to make classes challenging. Then many employers use the earned degree as a crude signal of diligence, since what was actually learned is likely irrelevant to the job at hand. Finally, most families send only a handful of children to college, and there's a significant lag between when graduates and the evaluation of the "success" of the degree. There's no way tuition can accurately price the variation in outcomes with all these inefficiencies. [1] http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/ http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/